BUS 365 M5A1 LASA Dropbox

Assignment 1: LASA 2—Afterschool Depot: Plan Development Issues

For this assignment, you will again be working with the Afterschool Depot case study.   Remember that you are the channel manager for Afterschool Depot and that Beth Nammons, Marketing Director, has assigned you to develop the channel design and implementation plan. 

As part of the plan development process, Beth has asked that you help her and other members of the management team understand the issues related to and the answers to the following questions.

1. What are the federal laws influencing channel management and how might they affect Afterschool Depot’s channel policies?
2. Do strategic alliances outperform ordinary distribution channels?  What is the evidence that they are successful? To what extent can strategic alliances strengthen sustainable competitive advantage?  Should Afterschool Depot work to develop strategic alliances within their channels and why or why not?
3. How can Afterschool Depot’s retail positioning strategy flow from both cost-side and demand-side factors?
4. What are the typical conflicts that may develop between Afterschool Depot and its wholesalers or retailers and how should each of the conflict types be managed to bring about resolution?

To complete this assignment you are to submit a 6-9 page paper that addresses all of these questions.  The paper must include a chart detailing the federal laws influencing channel management.  The chart should include a brief description of the laws, as well as an explanation of how the provisions of the laws might affect Afterschool Depot’s channel policies.  You may include other tables or charts in the report as you see fit.

You may want to carefully review the case scenario and other case information you developed in Module 3 as you consider the answers to these questions.

The paper must be submitted as a MS Word document and it must follow APA style guidelines. Use the following file naming convention: LastnameFirstInitial_M5_A1.doc